It’s been impossible to anticipate this World Cup with any joy. FIFA, that corrupt behemoth, has befouled the tournament well before it’s begun, between its astronomical ticket prices and the absurd peace prize it awarded to Trump. The US spreads and abets war and violence against civilians in the Middle East, and cruelty at home. In Mexico, multiple mass graves holding the remains of hundreds of victims of narco violence have been found in the vicinity of Guadalajara’s Estadio Akron, where World Cup matches will be held.
Still, I will watch the games with an anticipation that would have been unimaginable a year ago. Back during the 1998 World Cup, after I had moved to Mexico, I’d first fallen in love with fútbol and become a fan of the Mexican National Team, El Tri, when a dramatic Cuauhtémoc Blanco goal “won” them a draw against Belgium in a match they’d been losing 2-0. The anticipation now is borne from a bright young talent, Gilberto Mora, and what he could mean for Mexico this summer.
During the last World Cup, when Mexico failed to advance out of the group stage, Mora was the same age as my thirteen-year-old daughter is now. That men’s team was widely derided as the worst generation of Mexican players in history. In the 2024 Nations League final, El Tri suffered a humiliating 2-0 defeat to the USA, a team it had not beaten since 2019. Months later, at the Copa América, Mexico was eliminated in the group stage.
La Selección Mexicana got a new head coach in 2025, the veteran Javier Aguirre, but a pre-Gold Cup friendly that year, in which Mexico was trounced by Switzerland, did nothing to raise hopes. Key midfielder Luis Chávez was then ruled out of the Gold Cup by injury. I still remember the dismay of cantankerous Mexican television commentators over Aguirre’s decision to replace Chavez with Gilberto Mora, who’d caught his attention the summer before when, at fifteen, he’d debuted with the Xolos of Club Tijuana. At sixteen, he became the youngest player in national team history.
In the semifinals, Mexico and Honduras were scoreless through the first half. Tiny, impoverished Honduras usually fields a competitive team, but should they really be able to give Mexico so much trouble in a crucial match? It seemed as if for years now I’ve been watching an El Tri seemingly unable to sustain a vertical offense, its center-forwards always waiting in futility for passes that don’t come, its wingers dribbling off into corners, its midfielders failing to control possession with stupefying sideways and backward passes, no one ever in the right spot to score off a rebound.
Aguirre was quickly vindicated. Immediately, Mora’s vertical game had provided a much-needed spark. With his center of gravity low to the ground, his runs quick, crisp, and shifty, he read the game with startling intuition and intelligence.
Early in the second half, Mora received the ball from teammate Alexis Vega about thirty feet from the Honduran goal, dodged defenders, slid to his right, and smoothly sent a diagonal pass into the path of veteran striker Raúl Jiménez. GO-O-O-O-OL. Pandemonium. Release. Joy. Mexican announcer David Faitelson enthused that Mora had just made “one of those deathly diagonals that Jesús Arellano, ‘El Cabrito,’ used to make back in the late 90s.” Arellano, who played his first World Cup in 1998 and had set up that Cuauhtémoc Blanco goal against Belgium, was the young engine of a golden generation of Mexican players. Nearly three decades later, might another cycle begin?
Mexico won that Gold Cup, defeating the U.S. 2-1 in the final. Mora helped provide the Mexican offense with coherent velocity and purpose throughout that match, while also tirelessly contesting opponents all over the field. With him, the future of Mexican fútbol seemed brighter—well, until it didn’t. El Tri followed up their Gold Cup, the World Cup now less than a year away, with an eight-game winless streak. Mora, however, continued to shine, leading Club Tijuana Xolos to promotion into the Mexican top tier and helping Mexico reach the semi-finals of the U-20 World Cup, netting three goals and two assists in the tournament.
Mexican fútbol has many problems, one of which has long been player development. Liga MX owners hold on too long to prodigies who should be allowed to further develop in European leagues, while stocking their teams with mediocre international players, denying opportunities to promising young Mexican talents. Scouting and player development are haphazard in the impoverished, far-flung corners of the country, in poor barrios and rural villages. Private academies offer membership for a price, promising players that Mexican League scouts will occasionally come to watch, and, if suitably impressed, offer places in their clubs’ youth teams. Those private academies do provide good training, and the scouts do arrive, but they miss out on the countless children who live either too far away or whose families can’t afford the fees.
Mora, originally from Chiapas, is the son of a former Mexican League professional, Gilberto Mora Olaya. The family moved to Tijuana when Mora’s father was hired as a coach for the Club Tijuana Xoloitzcuintles youth academy in 2015. There, Gilberto became known as a good student, learning to speak fluent English and good German. He’s well-mannered and likable, with an owlish face and a future that seems almost unimaginably bright, especially once he turns eighteen, old enough to sign with a European team.
This year began grimly for Mora, when an athletic pubalgia, or sports hernia, sidelined him for two-and-a-half months and threw his participation in the World Cup—his seemingly inevitable step to international stardom—into question. Another rash of injuries to established starters like Edson Álvarez opened opportunities for new players, including some with Mexican parentage who’d grown up abroad: Brian Gutiérrez, who was born in the U.S.; Álvaro Fidalgo, the Spanish-Mexican midfielder; and Julián Quiñones, an attacker from Colombia. Following an eyebrow raising 4-0 win over Iceland in February, Mexico’s national team embarked on a six-game unbeaten streak culminating in ties against two of the top-rated teams in the world, Portugal and Belgium.
Professional fútbol commentators around the world took notice. SI’s Roberto Casillas wrote: “Find a way to add teenage sensation and playmaker Gilberto Mora to the equation and Aguirre might’ve just figured out a way to end El Tri significant attacking woes.” Another commentator remarked that the team labeled “Mexico’s worst generation” seemed to have found a defiant us-against-the-world identity.
Mora is the youngest of the 1,248 players in the World Cup. In the opening match of the tournament, he played just 25 minutes in Mexico’s uneven, much criticized 2-0 victory over South Africa, lifting the team’s tempo and connecting all 14 of his passes. I’m hopeful Mora will be in the starting midfield for the crucial knockout match against Ecuador, where his speed, creativity and vision could be indispensable for a Mexican victory. With him on the field, this Mexican national team has a potent blend of a toughened warhorse generation with a new, auspicious one. I won’t miss it, on the screen, for anything.